{"id":167515,"date":"2020-08-31T12:00:37","date_gmt":"2020-08-31T11:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=167515"},"modified":"2020-08-25T09:17:34","modified_gmt":"2020-08-25T08:17:34","slug":"pandit-jasraj-musician-extraordinaire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/08\/pandit-jasraj-musician-extraordinaire\/","title":{"rendered":"Pandit Jasraj \u2014 Musician Extraordinaire"},"content":{"rendered":"

25 Aug 2020 – <\/em>Indian classical music both vocal and instrumental can have countless number of varieties. These depend on the\u00a0gharanas<\/em>\u00a0(families or lineages), of the musicians as well as their individual differences.<\/p>\n

One outstanding vocalist was Jasraj\u00a0\u00a0popularly called Pandit Jasraj<\/em> out of love and respect.\u00a0\u00a0He was born in the northern Indian city of Hisar on 28 January 1930 and died in New Jersey USA on 17 August this year after a musical span of about 80 years. Jasraj had made New Jersey his home. He was not only a classical singer himself but mentored some budding musicians–Americans and overseas Indians–in the spiritual fineness of classical vocal music, including his daughter Durga Jasraj. His body was flown to India and last rites performed only on 20th August.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One noted gharana to promote music was sponsored by the Nizam VII of Hyderabad that had legendary singers such as\u00a0Begum Akhtar<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Bade Ghulam Ali Khan<\/em>.\u00a0His own family was also a place of learning music as well as imbibing it in one\u2019s soul. His Father Motiram\u00a0<\/em>died when Jasraj was only four years but his elder brother Maniram provided an ideal place for learning classical music and created in\u00a0Jasraj an abiding love for classical vocal music. Jasraj had initially learned to play tabla but after a while gave it up to concentrate on his first love \u2014 vocal music.<\/p>\n

Over the years Jasraj kept on singing and changing virtually the tenor of classical vocal music. He received several awards that were a befitting tribute to his genius both as a musician and as a person. In an interview, he once remarked, \u2018Music is not only for enjoyment \u2014 it is also a prayer to God…\u2019<\/p>\n

There are a large number of Indian classical singers and instrumentalists. One of the earliest one is the noted\u00a0TanSen<\/em>\u00a0who was an exponent of Indian classical music in the King Akbar\u2019s court before his death in April 1586. He was made one of the\u00a0 navratnas\u00a0<\/em>(brilliant heroes) by Akbar.<\/p>\n

Today there are some noted vocalists like G N Balasubramaniam and D Iyengar etc. for their lilting voice and music.<\/p>\n

Among the instrumentalists, the name of\u00a0Ravi Shankar<\/em>\u00a0is widely known for the magic he created with his sitar. He also interacted with the well known British group\u00a0Beatles<\/em>.\u00a0Other Indian instrumentalists are\u00a0Ali Akbar Khan\u00a0<\/em>(sarod),\u00a0Shiv Kumar Sharma<\/em>\u00a0(santoor), Hari Prasad Chaurasia<\/em>\u00a0(flute), and several others who have enriched music and entertained thousands of people both in India and overseas.<\/p>\n

Some of these musicians and composers have a similar stature and popularity as the western counterparts \u2014 Beethoven, Mozart and others.<\/p>\n

Apart from his musical talent and world recognition, Jasraj was a humble and kindly soul. A family that he knew, requested him to come to their home. Why? To sing some of his famous songs to their 6 year old grandchild\u00a0Kidar<\/em>\u00a0who could not speak but felt happy listening to some of Jasraj\u2019s classical songs. A few days later Jasraj came unannounced and was taken in to meet\u00a0Kidar<\/em>.\u00a0When his mother said the maestro has come to meet him,\u00a0Kidar<\/em>\u00a0just remained silent but when she asked if he would like to hear his music, he smiled in approval. The maestro sang a few songs for the enjoyment of the child who showed his appreciation by smiling, nodding his head.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Many persons have expressed sorrow at the passing away of Jasraj. One person has written that she is grateful for the solace his voice has given over the years. Another person wrote that Jasraj changed the character of music and of peace. A well known musician himself wrote that classical Indian music has lost one of its shining stars.<\/p>\n

Such words, emotions reflect the love and respect of many persons for the man and his music.<\/p>\n

Viva Pandit Jasraj!<\/em><\/p>\n

_____________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Dr Ravi P Bhatia is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/a>, an<\/em> educationist, Gandhian scholar and peace researcher. Retired professor, Delhi University. His new book, <\/em>A Garland of Ideas\u2014Gandhian, Religious, Educational, Environmental was published recently in Delhi.<\/em> ravipbhatia@gmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

25 Aug 2020 – Indian classical music both vocal and instrumental can have countless number of varieties. These depend on the gharanas (families or lineages), of the musicians as well as their individual differences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":166069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[915,129],"class_list":["post-167515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-art","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}